The LSS Recommended Reading List
LSS = the Not if you were the Last Short Story on Earth project.
So here we go. After much deliberating, the four of us have come up with a list of our Recommended Reading, from out of the thousands of stories we’ve read this year. This list represents those stories that a majority, if not all of us, felt were stand-outs and something special. We’ll follow this list with our own personal lists during the week, where we’ll share some of our more personal tastes and our thoughts. For now, though, here is our list of recommendations for 2007:
(note: for reasons of potential bias, I’ve separated those works written or published by a member of LSS from the others. These are listed at the end of the other list. Feel free to take those with a grain of salt.)
Stories we loved:
Maelstrom… Kage Baker (The New Space Opera)
Last Contact… Stephen Baxter (Solaris Books of New Science Fiction)
Paper Cut Scissors… Holly Black (Realms of Fantasy October)
The Coat of Stars… Holly Black (So Fey)
A Reversal of Fortune… Holly Black (The Coyote Road)
Times Winged Chariot… Nicola Caines (Albedo One #32)
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate… Ted Chiang (Fantasy & Science Fiction Sept)
Domine… Rjurik Davidson (Aurealis #37)
Knowledge… Grace Dugan (Interzone #211)
Chiaroscurist… Hal Duncan (Logorrhea)
Glory… Greg Egan (The New Space Opera)
Family Values… Sara Genge (Cosmos 16)
End Game… Nancy Kress (Asimovs April/May)
Fountain of Age… Nancy Kress (Asimovs June)
Bambi Steaks… Richard A. Lovett (Analog May)
A Complete Refabrication… Bren Macdibble (Orb #7)
Harvest… Joanne Merriam (Strange Horizons)
Stories of the Alien Invasion… Manek Mistry (Abyss & Apex #21)
John Wayne… Ben Peek (Aurealis #37)
Second Law… Alexandra Penn (Zahir #12)
Distant Replay… Mike Resnick (Asimovs)
The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter… Alistair Reynolds (Interzone #209)
Memoir of a Deer Woman… M. Rickert (Fantasy & Science Fiction March)
When We Were Twelve… Heather Shaw (When We Were Six)
Muse of Fire… Dan Simmons (The New Space Opera)
Right to Work… Cat Sparks (The Workers’ Paradise)
The River Horses… Allen M. Steele (Asimovs April/May)
Post Hoc… Leslie What (Interfictions)
Stories we loved with bias!:
The Goats Are Going Places… Tina Connolly (Shiny #2)
The Sun People… Sue Isle (Shiny #1)
Small Change… Trent Jamieson (Shiny #1)
Cracks… Trent Jamieson (Shiny #2)
Inside… Ben Payne (Ticonderoga Online #11)
The Bluebell Vengeance… Tansy Rayner Roberts (ASIM #28)
The Bride Price… Cat Sparks (New Ceres #2)
Cyclones
My bro lives in Darwin. Bad sister that I am, I had no idea that there was a cyclone anywhere near him – as this shows. (Innit cool? I love BOM.) Of course, a cyclone isn’t something that was going to panic him, for numerous reasons – he’s a boy who doesn’t like to show emotion, we lived through one as kids as well as a number of warnings. His unit would have been fine to see it through should it actually have got closer to Darwin, with just one problem – they’re very close to the sea, and hence the flood zone. But it’s Darwin, and there are lots of contingencies: houses are built cyclone-coded, which means most have a suitable shelter, and if you’re really worried there are lots of public places – like schools – you can shelter in.
Anyway – it’s gone south of Darwin, and drenched Adelaide River – which is funny only because Adelaide River is where the panickers generally head when there’s a cyclone alert. It’s now just a low, but the problem will be if it manages to hit the coast again and either turns around or crosses the Qld coast. Not that it can pick up that much strength in such a short stretch of water, but you never know.
Kenny
Oh my.
I’ve only just seen this little Aussie battler – I was dubious when I first saw the trailers, then heard rave reviews from various people, but never got around to it.
It is brilliant.
I can’t begin to describe it properly. If you haven’t seen it, and you’re not embarrassed by poo-talk, you must see it. It captures Australia beautifully. The family relationships in particular are so true that they’re heartbreaking – and they actually are all family! That’s amazing – and that they didn’t kill each other in making it. Kenny himself… well. Quintessentially what we’d like to think Aussie working class blokes are like, but not so stereotyped as to be unbelievable. I think the sheer brilliance of this is that I know Kennys. Quirks, surprises, and sheer bull-headed determination and all.
His insights into Aussie culture – and seeing festivals and the like from behind, as it were – are pointed and exact, and at times quite disturbing because of their truth. Driving past the Calder Raceway every day as I do, the hoons shown there were a bit scary – again, because it’s just so true. And, reflecting the quote from the start, it really does show just how little attention is paid to people who are – for all we like to think we live in a glorious, flat, classless society – treated no better than servants ever were in the hey-day of rigid class division. Those were the bits that made me squirm; not the frank and easy talk of poo (“regular as clockwork, that’s me…”). But Kenny just goes on, and does his job, and enjoys his job, while the people who think they are his betters act like right knobs.
This is The Castle for the 00s. It had better go down as one of the more insightful looks at Aussie culture – as well as being very funny. And the cinematography too – it really does look like a doco; it’s magnificently done.
Indiana Jones
Well, to start with I am very excited that the fourth one has actually had a date set for release – mid this year. It’s been a long time coming!! With Cate Blanchett, hopefully it will be good – I really hope it’s realistic about Ford being ancient. One of the things I really enjoyed about Lethal Weapon 4 was Glover and Gibson going on about being too old for this shit. Anyway, I’m excited.
What has sparked this post, though, was a viewing of Last Crusade. Great movie. Great movie. I adore the opening, with young Indy: it is so very nicely set up – I realised that you don’t know whether Indy is a scout or in the cave for quite a long time; the main looter in the cave even looks a bit like Ford, and of course the hat is Indy’s. It made me sad to see River Phoenix – such a pity for him to die so damn young.
And the whole movie is great. Good chases – although the tank/horse scene gets a bit long; good baddies – especially Elsa, of course, and adding in Hitler is brilliant; I love the zeppelin scene; and heck – it’s Connery! “The schlime of humanity” – what a line.
Underworld
We re-watched Underworld and Underworld Evolution the other day; I really do like those movies. It was quite funny in that for a few minutes there I had to make the effort to remember that we were watching this, and not Blade. Kate Beckinsdale is quite good; Scott Speedman is quite adorable. Quite adorable.
The thing that struck me this time was the atemporal and aspatial nature of the duo. Yes, there is the date at the start of Evolution, where you find out about Williams and Marcus; there is the whole, rather confused thing about how long the war has been going on, how long Selene has been a vampire, and exactly when Alexander Corvinus lived… but it doesn’t give a date for the movie, and it’s both sufficiently old-fashioned – the mansion, for example, and the very noir feel – as well as sufficiently futuristic – the clothes, guns, lights – that atemporal is the only way to describe it.
The cityscape of the first movie is unrecognisable: it could be European or American. Add in the rural landscape of the second, which is essentially mythical Transylvania (or your basic Eastern European setting), and it quite confuses the setting utterly – certainly more European than American, which is entertaining in contrast to the predominance of Yank accents. I liked this aspect; I think it worked better than trying to ground it somewhere more concretely. It sets the story loose, lets it play fast and loose with geography and makes it more dramatic.
I was also reminded of quite how attractive the movies are to watch. Lovely shadows, stark corners, gloomy backgrounds… delightful.
More archaeology for me!
So my nerdy excitement levels are way high at the moment, because today I found – in Ballarat of all places! – a copy of a magazine I’ve never heard of: British Archaeology. I subscribe to the American one, which comes from the American Institute for Archaeology; this one is put out by the Council for Brisitsh Archaeology. Now, it was quite expensive, but it is beautifully printed and – although short – it seems to have only about 2 full page ads in the entire 66 or so pages! Compared to the American one, and even BBC History (which I also subscribe to), this is quite amazing. Anyway – I’m very pleased, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Most of it, of course, is British – which is fun – and a cursory glance seems to indicate that it will be like the American one in terms of being reasonably good history and good archae, and being populist at the same time.
Hurrah for me.
Rise of the Silver Surfer
… was really, really crap. I liked the premise of the Surfer himself, but they really didn’t develop that very well – and even if he’s just a herald, they could have made more of that aspect. I even quite liked the idea of exploring their tension-filled relationship with their fame, but that was done quite poorly too. And except for a few moments between Reed and what’s-her-face, Alba, and some angsty moments between the whingy Human Torch and his sister, there was pretty much no real interaction between the Fantastic Four themselves. Essentially, it was SFX driven, and the plot – not to mention the dialog – really suffered as a result.
Fun to watch though, as long as your credulity is taking a long, long holiday.
Tears at Christmas
yes, I know that a lot of people talk about fights etc at Christmas, and that roll-the-eyes stereotype of people hating their relatives at Christmas but having to spend time with them. I am fortunate in having a small and fairly close family – and living 3000km away from most of the extended family for my growing up may have helped this.
Anyway, the tears were because of my mother, today – and she was 800km away. Impressive, eh?
She gave me a set of my Dad’s military medals, in miniature. For those of you with no experience in this – anyone who gets a medal gets the full-size one, and a miniature. Not sure of the original reason for this. You can get extra miniature ones, too, it turns out. So my brother and I, no longer living at home, have got a full set of Dad’s medals (for service – nothing extraordinary – in Vietnam), all attached properly on a ribbon, with a pin at the back, so we can wear them if ever we want to on ANZAC Day etc. I’m never likely to do that, but my bro might.
Dad died June 2000. It’s a really special, unexpected present.
Randomly Yours, Alex 